It’s 2012 and in just 6-months iCreate will be 2 years old! On one hand it seems like not that long ago we sat down to think of a company name, register with the state, come up with a logo, and launch a website. But in looking at how we’ve matured our thinking in how we can make a positive difference in learning, it certainly has taken us nearly 2 years to get here.

We’ve learned so much from our customers and other entrepreneurial ventures in this space, and I’m sure will continue to do so as we grow. Without the support of our early customers, the Kauffman Foundation mentors, Tufts researchers, and the Boston edtech community, we wouldn’t be where we are today!

Over the next year, we plan to hone in on this idea of giving teachers a framework and tools for increasing student engagement through creation. And making those tools so incredibly simple that they don’t distract from the creativity and ideas inherent to a classroom.

While we have our current desktop product, SAM Animation, we aim to expand to a tablet and add features that allow the tool to truly be implemented across content areas. On the content side, we will continue to generate, test, and release activity guides (5 per month) that help teachers integrate our tools into the curriculum they are already teaching. And for the iCreate community, we will make official what already informally exists: an “iCreate Elite Educator” group comprised of active teachers using our tools and guides, providing feedback, speaking at conferences, running workshops locally, and generally being champions for all learners creating.

It’s going to be an exciting year and we’re looking forward to all that we will learn over the next 12 months!